Thicker than Water
by Smith Smithson
Summary: When Tarrlok left home for the last time, he made a conscious decision to never become a father. The universe, however, rarely takes into consideration what Tarrlok wants.
1. Blame

Originally prompted on the ficbending kink meme, and written because torturing Tarrlok is fun for the whole family. This is technically TarrlokxOC I guess, but since romance isn't a central focus in this story, references to the woman will be kept to a minimum. This is all about tormenting Tarrlok with offspring, so no pairings for the time being. (Unless I can think of some extremely compelling reason to weasel some Korrlok in.)

* * *

_**Thicker than Water**_

Chapter 1: Blame

~;;~

Councilmen Tarrlok sat in his office, and tried desperately not to think. He'd never been much good at that - his mind was always turning and stewing, schemes and stratagems simmering beneath simple guile and a practiced smile. It had served him well in the past, but now, more than anything, he wanted it all to stop. To turn his mind off, and sleep. To forget that today had ever happened.

Midnight had come and gone hours ago, leaving him alone with his thoughts - not a safe place right now. But try as he might, he couldn't stop the conversation from looping over and over, like his own personal, self-inflicted torture. The accusations crawled under his skin, worming their way into old wounds until they bled anew with fresh guilt and frustration.

_"…you have a responsibility…"_

_"…insisted that he stay with you…"_

_"…never asked you for a single yuan…"_

_"…a better life in Republic City…"_

"Sir?"

A court attendant stood in his doorway, chin tucked into the collar of his shirt, as if he were trying to shrink into nothing. A simpering, timid young man from Ba Sing Se University he'd seen skirting around the halls and meeting room with rapt curiosity. He bore the same naive idealism Tarrlok had shared when he entered the business of politics, shed long ago in favor of practicality. He'd found an immediate dislike for the boy.

"What is it?" His voice sounded weak. Drained. The attendant seemed to pick up on his mood, hunching even further into himself.

"Well, it's just… it's nearly two in the morning sir, and we need to lock up the building… unless of course, you're still working…I can talk to security and ask them to-"

"No," he cut the boy off with a wave of the hand. His voice was grating, and it didn't help the headache building between his eyes. "I'm leaving. Give me a moment to finish."

"O-of course," the boy tipped forward in a awkward bow before shuffling off just a bit too quickly. Tarrlok paid him no mind - he had too much on his own right now.

He rose out of his chair in a series of jerky, wooden movements, a marionette wielded with broken strings. His wrists were horribly sore from writing, but he ignored the stiffness and gathered the notes into a rough pile, filing them away. They were meticulously precise and wide in their scope, but it still felt insufficient for the coming weeks. Maniitok had still insisted that they speak again in person, and he was in no mood to refuse. He needed all the help he could get. Dates, contact information, and countless other details tossed and turned in his head until his mind was a soup of numbers and nonsense. There was too much to do; too much to plan. Just… too much.

He really was tired.

Somewhere in his pocket was a crumpled note. It'd arrive today, preceding the phone call, but he fancied he'd already memorized every word on that page. Twice. He would have burned it out of spite or sheer frustration, but instead he found himself tracing the groves in the paper as he remembered the hands that wrote it. How long had it been? Six years? It felt like so much longer, though sometimes, it felt like no time at all. He barely thought of Sura anymore - it was easier that way. She reminded him too much of home. He supposed he had no choice but to remember her now.

He took the note from his pocket and smoothed it on his desk with measured deliberateness, as if it were a length of fine silk. The writing was messy and small - exactly as he had remembered it - and for just a moment he let himself linger on just the strokes and shapes of the characters rather than the meaning behind them. He let himself reminisce on cold nights and warm furs, shouting matches and make-up sex, sea prunes and turtle-seal jerky. On raucous laughter and cheeky grins and the few times he'd truly felt happy since his brother's disappearance. He let himself remember her, for just a little bit.

The moment passed, and the reality of his situation hit him once more like a speeding Satomobile. He wanted to break something. He was filled with the childish urge to smash the phone; to tear up the letter, as if it would send today away, and bring a simpler (and he'd never used the word "simple" in the context of politics before) tomorrow. Tarrlok distantly remembered his father telling him that anger was better than uncertainty, but he knew now that he was wrong. This… directionlessness, this all consuming rage was so, _so_ much worse than simple irresolution.

He needed to blame someone, anyone, but he found his options rather limited. He so desperately wanted to hate Sura for everything, but his heart just wasn't in the attack. Besides, there was nothing to gain from condemning the dead. Maniitok deserved no share of his ire either; he was just the messenger, and an unwilling one at that. Sura's father had never liked him much, and now he had a good reason.

After wrestling with the issue for a few moments longer, he settled on blaming Yakone. If his father hadn't been so weak, so driven by revenge, he wouldn't have died in despair once Noatak fled. Then Tarrlok wouldn't have left for the Northern Capital to study. He would have never met Sura, and then_ this _never would have happened. His reasoning was a stretch by any measure of the word, but it gave him just a modicum of comfort. Slowly, he felt the anger fade until it was just a dull ache in the back of his heart.

He found himself tracing the note again, fingers running up and down the lines as he felt, more than read the letter. He could feel the plea, the desperation in every stroke Sura had made, but that didn't make the news any easier to bear. Absentmindedly, his thumb settled on a sentence. He knew what it said - he could tell from the deep gouges, the tension that had gone into writing the words. But if writing them had been difficult for Sura, then reading them once more was almost unbearable for him. And yet his eyes trailed down the page, and for the thousandth time that night, he read the three little words that shattered his world.

_**You're a father.**_


	2. Denial

**Thicker Than Water**

Chapter 2: Denial

~;;~

Speaking to Sura's father was as unpleasant as he'd expected. The man was already angry and abrasive, and the fact that he stuck out like a purple platypus-bear didn't help in the slightest. If there was ever an apotheosis of "fresh off the boat," Maniitok embodied it. Ruddy, greasy, and with a potbelly to rival the finest stove, he couldn't have looked more out of place in Republic City if he'd tried. And he certainly was trying. Already, the man had decided to brave the city's record-breaking heat wave in full tribal garb, opting to sweat buckets onto the (expensive) chair Tarrlok had provided him, rather than just remove his parka. He suspected it was due to some sort of misplaced national pride, and the man promptly and loudly reminded Tarrlok that he'd forgotten _his_when he'd left the Northern Water Tribe for this glitzy, soulless, den of inequity. If nothing else, the whole situation confirmed one thing: Sura had definitely gotten her good looks and charm from her mother.

"I hope ya know I'm no happier about this than you are," the older man said as he scratched at his beard absentmindedly, glancing around the councilman's chambers with unabashed distaste.

Tarrlok doubted that, but he said nothing.

"Probably even less," he continued, taking silence as permission to speak. "I told my daughter, I told her 'Nanuq needs to stay with the tribe. With his family. Nothin' good's gonna come from him goin' to live in Republic City.' She wouldn't have any of it. Can't imagine why she'd think _you_," the 'you' was punctuated by a grubby finger flung across his desk, and Tarrlok fought the urge to lean away. "would do a better job raisin' him. Argued about it up to her dying breath. But I loved my little girl and I'll respect her wishes, so don't screw this up. I know how things are in this city: it's always pleasure, then work, and _then_ family. But not anymore. That boy is your _top priority_now."

Maniitok leaned back in his chair and nodded, looking rather pleased with himself and his train-wreck of a speech. Tarrlok blinked a couple of times before clearing his throat. "Right…well I assure you that I'm taking this very seriously."

That much was true at least. In the week between receiving the news and Maniitok's arrival, shock had faded into a dull, empty sort of acceptance that life as he knew it was now over. Acknowledging his new situation had been the most difficult part by far, but he'd managed with the help of copious amounts of alcohol, and just a pinch of stubborn denial. Just because he'd accepted it however, did not mean he welcomed the change from Councilman Tarrlok: Up-And-Coming Politician, to Councilman Tarrlok: Single Father. But it was far to late now, and he would never admit he was having second (fifth) thoughts to the old man's face.

Maniitok scrutinized him for a few seconds, searching him for any signs of sarcasm or dishonesty. Seeming satisfied, he nodded and crossed his arms over his stomach. "Well if you're certain, I can have the lawyers bring the papers by tonight."

In all honesty, he wasn't certain at all. Not in the least bit. But there was no way he could pull out now (though a part of him couldn't help but think how much trouble that would have saved him if he'd done so six years ago). At least not with his career intact. Damage control was first and foremost on his ever-growing list of priorities, and he'd devoted himself fully to it. Currying favors from publishers he had in his pocket, "gifts" to those he didn't - this whole thing needed to be swept under the rug, or at the very least, presented in the most favorable light possible. What mattered most now was presentation: he could fix this. He could make it through this squeaky clean. He just needed to keep a clear head.

Maniitok was nodding thoughtfully again, though at who or what, he couldn't say. A heavy silence settled between the two men, punctuated by the hum of Satomobiles from the streets below, and the gentle roar of the waterfall behind them. Tarrlok let himself wander for a bit as he waited for the man to say more, his mind following the network of tunnels that piped the water from his office back to its source: a large freshwater reservoir under City Hall. As time stretched on, and neither of them spoke, he felt a powerful need to break the suffocating quiet with something. In a fit of impulsiveness, he asked the first question he could think of - the most pressing thing on his mind this past week.

"Why me?" The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. Maniitok's eyebrows quirked, and Tarrlok cursed himself for bringing it up.

"Hnm?"

"Why did Sura want… him… to live with me." He struggled with the name for a moment. Right now, the child was still a concept - an abstraction. He knew, in theory, that in two weeks time a young boy named Nanuq would be arriving from the Northern Capital to live with him indefinitely. But to call him by his name, to acknowledge him as his own… he knew it was foolish, but he felt like if the boy was faceless, he could remain hypothetical. Like a "what if" question, posed by a drunk coworker, or a particularly unsettling dream one could shake off after a good breakfast. Which was childish, because this was happening. It was definitely happening, and he was in denial again. He was in denial about being in denial.

Maniitok shrugged. "Hell if I know."

_Well that was helpful._ Tarrlok really, _really_ wished he didn't have to have this conversation with _Maniitok_of all people, but if anyone were to have insight into Sura's motives, he'd assumed it would've been her father. Apparently he was wrong. He was beginning to wonder if this whole situation wasn't just some sort of elaborate plot for revenge - Sura's way of trying to destroy the very career he'd left her for. There certainly was more than just a bit of poetic justice in there, though he doubted she would have been so petty as to use her own offspring as a tool of vengeance (the thought tied his stomach into knots all the same). Still, he knew better than anyone that six years was more than enough time for resentment to metamorphose into outright loathing. Forgiving Noatak for leaving had been very difficult.

"Just said the two of you needed each other. Or somethin' like that, at least," the older tribesman added without looking in his direction.

Tarrlok didn't know whether to laugh or cry, so instead he scoffed. She thought he needed this? On top of the gang wars? The steel union strikes? The coal shortages at the power plant? This week alone he must have aged a good five years, and spent a small fortune on the strongest drink money could buy. And the boy wasn't even here yet. If this was supposed to be cathartic… well, he supposed it was cathartic, but certainly not in any way that was good for his health. Revenge was beginning to sound more and more plausible.

"And what exactly does that mean?"

"You tell me." Maniitok's eyes bored into his own, cloud meeting ice. Tarrlok held his gaze, and straightened his back against the implied challenge.

"I couldn't really say."

Maniitok just shrugged again. "Not really any of my business anyways. All I care 'bout is that you take good care of my grandson. Whatever other problems there are… well… just don't let them get in the way of that."

After a brief moment of strained silence, Maniitok rose abruptly and decisively, stretching as he wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead. "Well, I've said my piece. All's left is to sign the papers tonight, I suppose." The man turned around and walked out the door without another word. Not even a goodbye. Tarrlok found himself trying to remember if everyone in the north pole had been that uncouth, or just Maniitok.

When the man left, the tension in the room deflated and Tarrlok felt his shoulders slump minutely. All things told, this had gone better than he'd expected. There'd been no yelling - they'd almost been civil - and the only casualty was Maniitok's sweat-drenched chair. And yet he felt no better than he had before the meeting. No better than he had this entire week. He felt like he was waiting for someone to stop him; to smack him upside the head and ask him what the hell he thought he was doing (he was more than a little bit surprised Beifong hadn't yet). As painful as it was to compare himself to the man in any measure, he knew was no more a father than Yakone had been. At least not in any practical sense of the word.

He desperately wanted to run away. Run away like his father had from the Avatar. Like Noatak had from him. Run away like he'd run away from his shell of a family. When had he gotten so weak?

_"He was right about you. You are a weakling!"_

The memory surfaced uninvited, and he hastened to shove it deep back down where it belonged. He had enough on his mind right now without the ghosts of his past intruding on the present. Besides, he wasn't the scared little boy in the snow anymore. He was a leader of the most powerful city in the world. He was _the_leader. And if he could run a city, he could run a family.

_"Don't screw this up."_

One could only hope.


End file.
